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Old February 27th 19, 10:27 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default high tow vs low tow

So....I think you are bringing up a completely different issue now...the speed of the tow. If the problem is too slow of a tow....the solution is to get the tug to go faster...the solution is not high tow or low tow....

Accepted procedure is for the glider pilot to brief the tow pilot on any pertinent information needed for the tow...such as airspeed to be used...

Many previous discussions on why a glider can fly at a fairly slow airspeed in free flight, yet can't comfortably fly that slow while on tow.

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On Wednesday, February 27, 2019 at 2:29:16 PM UTC-5, Mike the Strike wrote:
All my early flights were in South Africa, where low tow was the norm at my home field. I only remember one problem, when my heavily-ballasted Jantar-1 over-ran the towplane when it slowed on hitting a strong thermal. The towrope snaked over the canopy then passed over my left wing in a large loop. I recovered just fine, but it did catch my attention!

I have had many more problems trying to maintain high tow in a fully ballasted Discus 2b and had several occasions where I ran out of elevator authority due to a slow tow, usually releasing prematurely. I managed to stay on once in such a slow tow, but sank into low tow position and had insufficient elevator to resume high tow at the speed flown. Maybe low tow has a slight aerodynamic edge with modern ships?

Mike